


Amongst Innumerable Stars

by aurilly



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Backstory, Love at First Sight, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 10:53:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14851373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: On the eve of Enoch's latest wedding, Baruch follows the bride-to-be as she sneaks out of her father's house. What he finds changes everything.





	Amongst Innumerable Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MildredMost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/gifts).



_Easier than Air with Air, if Spirits embrace,_  
 _Total they mix, Union of Pure with Pure_  
 _Desiring; nor retrain’d conveyance need_  
 _As Flesh to mix with Flesh, or Soul with Soul._  
\--Milton, Paradise Lost

As a permanent wanderer, Baruch had taken to staying in haylofts. He’d found that he liked the simplicity, the smell of the hay, the fact that the sun greeted him first, by virtue of being the closest to the sky. 

This morning, he stretched himself in the window of his current hayloft (to whom it belonged, he had no idea) and watched the early morning hubbub below. Out in the street, vendors were making their way to and fro, pulling wagons behind them and whipping their hot, already-tired horses.

It had been years since Baruch had last been this close to home, but he couldn’t recall this much activity in the town. Not even the last time his eldest brother had gotten married, which had been—and Baruch had to pause in his stretch, bend sideways a little to jog the memory, like jostling a bit of water out of the ear after a long swim—oh, about five years ago.

“Baruch!” a voice hesitantly called from below. “Is it true that you are up there?”

He leaned over the windowsill and looked down to see Edna, Enoch’s first wife, and Baruch’s favorite, standing below the window. Her left arm perched akimbo, while the other shielded her eyes from the dawn’s light. He hadn’t seen her in years; while her posture had slumped slightly from tiredness—prolonged exposure to Enoch’s domestic tyranny would do that, something Baruch knew better than most—she remained as lovely as he remembered from her own wedding day.

“I’ll be down soon!” he called back, trying to guess how she had found him, and feeling a flutter of fear. He had tried to keep his identity and presence here a secret; while not technically flouting his banishment, Baruch was running a risk by passing through this area.

He scrambled to locate the hooded tunic he had thrown off at some point during the sweltering night and then climbed out of the window, using a rope he had tied to the wall to ease him down to the ground. 

“You’ll break your neck,” Edna called worriedly as he descended. “Why were you up there at all? Are there not plenty of inns here in Gomorrah?”

“Yes, but this is more pleasant.”

“Still an overgrown boy, I see.”

“Oh, always.” He tugged at the hood and pulled it further over his face to avoid recognition. “How did you know I was here?”

“Enoch may have banished your body, but your memory remains bright in the hearts of everyone around here. The sweetmeat seller recognized you yesterday morning, and sent word to me in secret. Be assured; your brother has not been informed. No one would betray you to him.”

Edna pulled him into a tight embrace, a little _too_ tight, which immediately told Baruch that something was amiss. He leaned back to look at her and saw a tear zig zagging its way down her face.

“What troubles you?” he asked, holding her at arm’s length and kissing the droplet from her cheek.

“Nothing. Everything. Come.”

They passed by cart after cart, each one smelling more delicious than the last, whether with flowers or sweetmeats or perfectly ripened fruit. Baruch looked longing at each one until finally a pretty girl smiled at him and pressed a plum into his palm as he passed. He took it with a shy smile that expressed gratitude, but no promises.

“Where are you coming from?”

“I was in Ayodhya a couple of months ago.”

“What or where is that?”

“A city in a land far, far to the East. I have been making my way back ever since. I was thinking of stopping here just long enough to reprovision myself and then head west, to see what I might find there.”

“And have you discovered anything interesting during your travels?” Edna asked. 

“That was just the trouble. They have hardly been travels at all,” Baruch replied, in between juicy bites.

“But the merchant said you’d mentioned stopping in Babylon. Months away! And this India, Practically the other end of the world. I call that ‘travels’.”

“It isn’t, though. The other side of the world, I mean. It’s barely any different from here. There was plenty more world beyond it, too. The merchants and seamen spoke of cities that were months away from _there_.”

“So why did you not seek them out as well? Why did you return here, other than to bring your friends secret joy? Why did you not continue even farther east?”

“I returned to the start, because I could see that I might ride and ride, for years, and never reach what I sought. I thought to reset, and thereby possibly find what I seek.” 

“And what is that?”

Baruch hunched his strong, wide shoulders and frowned. “I no longer know. I don’t know if I ever did. There is something inside me that wants something… Something else. Something so different that I cannot even imagine it. But I do not think it can be found on horseback. The pace is too slow. I am not sure it can be found at all. Perhaps if I could fly, but…”

Edna, for all the trouble flickering behind her sad eyes, threw her head back and laughed. “What, like a bird? Oh, Baruch, the odd things you say. You have not changed a bit. It is no great mystery what you seek, you young fool.”

“Eh? And what is that?”

“Love.”

“Edna…” 

“If only you had taken one of the lovely brides your father had proposed before his death. It was foolish of you, to allow your brother the opportunity to act on his jealousy of you.”

“What has he to be jealous of? I am…” _Simple, uninteresting, hardly special_ , Baruch thought especially when he compared himself with the majesty of his eldest brother.

“Loved by all, by your departed father most of all. And you a truly loved, not the fear-driven loyalty your brother elicits,” Edna answered for him. “And moreover, you are young, strong, and handsome. Honestly, if I were younger and had to do it all over again…”

“You know I have never wanted… that.”

“Were there no pretty girls in Babylon?”

“Many.”

“Was their hair not shiny? Were their figures not luscious?”

“Y—yes,” Baruch stuttered after each question, feeling his tanned and sun-freckled skin becoming hot from within, in addition to the heat beating down on it from the sun. 

“Was their skin not soft and easily pressed during passion?”

“I wouldn’t know. I did not conduct extensive explorations,” he replied, thinking of the explorations he had instead made of a few of the men.

“You _are_ hopeless.”

Edna had been leading him all the while to the edge of the town, where they might speak more privately, without so many witnesses. 

“What did you want to ask me?” he asked once they were alone. “Why did you seek me out? Surely you would not have taken such a risk without reason.”

“It’s about Enoch’s upcoming wedding,” Edna said. 

“He is taking another wife?”

“Yes. The daughter of a wealthy and powerful man. And very, very beautiful. Enoch hungers for her, and for the wedding night.”

“But you have concerns?” 

“Her eyes are unnaturally bright, and her attention wanders. She sighs when you speak to her, and is always looking into the shadows and the fog as though seeking something, but there is nothing. I cannot tell whether she is mad, or if she has some other lover.”

“Enoch will not like that,” Baruch replied, growing nervous. He was well-acquainted with his brother’s temper and possessiveness. “He likes his wives pure, untouched, and completely devoted to him. Better that she is mad.”

“I agree.”

“What would you have me do?”

“My actions are restricted,” Edna replied, “but, as a man, _you_ are free to go anywhere you please. I think the girl sneaks out of her father’s house at night. Follow her. Discover what is going on and if the situation can be saved. If not, I’ll need to find a way to stop the wedding. I would prefer any woman to fall into disgrace before the ceremony than bear Enoch’s wrath after they are married.”

Baruch nodded. “I do not know who her father is, but I’m sure his worst punishments would be more lenient than Enoch’s lightest.”

“And so you understand.” Edna nodded. “There is more, too. She is not the only one. There has been a sort of a… a fever, among in the town in recent weeks. The young people, and even some of the older ones, share the same bright-eyed distraction as young Rachel. But they won’t talk about it, and become evasive when asked questions. It is as if they had joined a secret group. Everyone knows something odd has been going on, but… I fear for our entire town. I have a terrible premonition that something terrible is about to befall us all, and it is tied to this. Rachel’s dreaminess is but a signal.”

“Tell me where her father lives, and I will follow her tonight, and see if I can uncover the mystery.”

* * *

As the day wore on and Baruch explored the town that he somewhat remembered (he had grown up in the twin city of Sodom, a half-day’s ride away), Baruch began to understand what Edna had meant about the strange fever that had taken hold of the area. Too many people seemed lost in dreams, watching sundials and counting the minutes to some great joy. Those who did not wrestled with impatience. 

Later that afternoon, Baruch walked in the direction of the compound in which the family of the bride-to-be resided. Rachel would be Enoch’s wealthiest acquisition yet, if all went well. But judging by Edna’s words, all might not go well. 

He encountered a servant belonging to the house, and waved a coin in front of her.

“Yes, sir?” she asked eagerly, eyes following the coin.

“Run along and ask where Rachel might be found, and if she is at home. If not, discover whither she has gone.” 

The girl ran off and returned a few minutes later, giggling.

“She has left, along with half the servants and a few others from the town. They have gone to the grove.” She said the location in a hushed, knowing whisper.

“Do you intend to go there as well tonight?”

“Of course.”

“Then I will accompany you, for I, too, wish to experience it,” Baruch said, having no idea what it was he would experience, but sensing this was the correct answer.

They walked and walked until they eventually left the town altogether. Baruch saw lengthening shadows, and then other things, too. He couldn’t quite see them except out of the corner of his eye, in places where there was light in the middle of shadow. But as soon as he turned to look directly, the light vanished. Something very odd was going on, and he felt more excitement and anticipation about what he might discover tonight than he had felt during all of his travels. 

Eventually, he and the servant girl had been joined by almost a crowd of other people, of all ranks of life. Most escaped their homes by stealth. Those with more liberty simply walked out of the gates, whistling with confidence. Baruch tried to keep his eyes on Rachel, but she was simply one of a crowd. Baruch even recognized one of his father’s servants among the throng. 

The group eventually reached the green valley at the other side of the river that marked the border of the land. Baruch hung towards the back of the group, which stopped and spread out. An expectant hush fell over them, as they waited for something to happen.

And then he saw it. The transcendent beauty he had spent so many years searching for, before finally giving up.

A flock of winged people appeared, bathed in light and streaming into view through what might have been an invisible door in the sky. They were high up in the sky, and looked small, but as they slowly descended and came closer, Baruch could tell they were about the size of regular men and women. Others streamed in from the forest, and now he understood the flashes he had seen out of the corner of his eye during the walk. 

They showed up better in the half-darkness, as though light were falling on them, even though the sun’s rays no longer shone that high in the sky. Beautiful wings, of all shapes and sizes, spread out from the backs of gorgeously, shamelessly, naked bodies. As they grew closer, Baruch was able to make out some of their faces. They did not all possess gorgeous features or idealized bodies, and not all of them looked very young. But they were all, to Baruch’s eyes, inexpressibly lovely. Only creatures greater than humanity could wear such nudity with such innocent thoughtlessness, he thought. Only those who were pure of spirit and unclouded by the material worries of mundane life. 

One by one they landed, with a glorious flutter of blinding wings, shining ever brighter in the increasing darkness. Soon the field was full of them, and the grass bent only slightly under the weight of their bare feet. Their wings were not at all standard in size and shape, and some of the beings were brighter—or were the recipients of more brightness—while others were more difficult to see. Baruch could not guess at the differences between them, but he marveled. 

This was obviously not the first time they had come to this field, nor the first time they were meeting most of the townspeople that Baruch had followed. He watched as, one by one, the light people—for he had no other word for them—sought out some special friend, or as one of the townspeople ran towards one of them. Normal people became enveloped in a passionate embrace full of light. Baruch’s heart broke with yearning as he watched couples reunite, seemingly after only a day or two, if Edna’s guesses were true that these visits happened regularly. In addition to the existing relationships, there were also some new recruits, both on the human side and on the travelers’ side. Baruch watched introductions take place, but as he had come alone—the servant girl having long abandoned him once it was clear there was a whole crowd to follow—there was no one to introduce him to anyone.

He slunk even farther back from the crowd, to better see the full scope of the miracle in front of him. He felt too overcome by happiness at the mere existence of these people to truly regret his lack of participation, and their beauty made him feel shy.

Rachel, Enoch’s intended, held the hand of a young man whose face may not have been the most handsome of the lot, but whose wings spanned almost twice as wide as the others’. Baruch could not blame her for preferring such a man to his brother, whom she had likely never met before becoming promised to him; he found the being as beautiful as Rachel likely did.

The injunction passed from parents to children, and repeated constantly, by everyone, was to marry and multiply. But Baruch’s tastes had never run to what might accomplish this goal. He had pushed off all of his father’s efforts to get him a wife with first one excuse and then another, until eventually, shortly after their father’s death, Enoch had caught Baruch with a man and had him banished for indecency and perversion. 

Years of travel had left Baruch disillusioned and unhappy. What he had not told Edna was that he come back to this region because he’d been considering giving up. He’d been mulling over the idea of throwing himself at Enoch’s feet, to apologize and renounce, and to ask if he might be allowed to start over, and settle into the kind of life that everyone had mapped out for him long ago.

But now, after this evening, and after seeing these people, Baruch knew that he would never be able to live as everyone else did. 

“You are a strange one, hanging back as you do,” a voice nearby suddenly said. 

Baruch flinched and turned and saw one of the light people standing nearby. He was one of the ones who were easier to see, drawing what little light remained in the day onto him with a fierce brightness. The long shadows around but not on him served to emphasize his features. There were shadows under his sharp cheekbones, shadows emphasizing enormously round eyes, and shadows under his curly hair. His face had a few more lines than Baruch’s—lit in gold, unlike the careworn ones of his father and elder brother. However, while older-seeming than Baruch, he was not yet of middle age. In fact, Baruch could not quite tell exactly how old he was. 

This man was the first of the beings that Baruch had seen up close, and the nearness to such serene perfection burned him, but not on his flesh. It was as though a deeper place within him had finally been found and stroked. Baruch had never felt anything so soothing. He would remember this moment until death and beyond, he knew, as the seminal moment of his entire existence. 

“I have not seen you here before. Are you mute, or merely slow?” the man asked next, when Baruch had failed to answer.

Baruch gazed upon his interloper as he often gazed at a sunset—with awe and love. For Edna had been right after all. _This_ , love, was what he’d been seeking, and love had finally come upon him, bigger and greater than anything he had felt for the sons of his father’s friends, for the brothers of his husbands wives. All that had merely been lust for flesh—physical and salty and wet in all the wrong places, heavy and lugubrious. But this, here, in the valley with this man made of reflected light, Baruch knew, was the love of the spirit he had searched for. 

Without having ever met this man before, without even knowing what he _was_ , Baruch could tell, intrinsically, that the stranger bore him no ill will. Only light bemusement, the idle curiosity anyone might feel for an oddity. Baruch decided to grip that idle curiosity and ride it into something like real interest, long enough to prove himself worthy of the man’s love.

“Hello,” he finally choked out, sounding as stupid as the man probably thought he was.

“Ah, so you _do_ speak.”

Not even the man’s knowing, sarcastic tone could diminish the reverence Baruch felt. If anything, that touch of realness to ground the vision served only to intensify Baruch’s appreciation. 

“Yes, I can speak,” Baruch said, slowly, tripping over the words. 

“Not as well as some others, but I’ll allow that you do. If you are not a mute, then why do you hang back?”

“I have right here everything I seek,” Baruch gulped out. Hardly charming, all too honest. A lifetime of silence on this subject had left him unpracticed for this great moment, and he wished the ground would swallow him up.

The man, however, merely looked at him anew, with a tilted head, searchingly. Instead of responding, he pressed, “You do not have much here, in the shadows. Does the general rutting not interest you? Did you not come to partake? Surely watching is not nearly as satisfying.”

“I… I did not think such pleasures could be for me. And so I watch. And… And I would rather talk to you.”

“I see,” the beautiful one said, surprised for the first time. For all the wisdom Baruch had assumed these people possessed, this one did not seem to have ascertained the depth or nature of Baruch’s sudden feelings. “It is the women, then, that you have come to see, to watch as they disrobe for my brethren? I saw your eyes fixed on one of them, a very pretty one. Was it jealousy that brought you tonight?” The man looked over at the general throng, to where Rachel was leaving with her handsome winged being, off into the forest. In fact, the entire crowd was dispersing, in couples or larger groups, in search of privacy. 

“No. I… She was… is… to marry my brother. I was sent to see…” Baruch could not continue to speak of Rachel. He burned with only one question. “What is your name?”

“Balthamos.”

“Balthamos.” Baruch rolled it around on his tongue, feeling the sequence of shapes settling there, as though preparing to say the word many times. Most likely he would, because he had never heard a lovelier word. “And I am Baruch.” 

Balthamos did not give any of the usual pleasantries expected after an exchange of introductions. He merely nodded, and grew awkward, looking away.

“I hope it is neither rude nor overly ignorant of me to ask, but what are you? All of you? Where did you come from? Never before have I heard of such beings. Men… men made of light, and who can fly! Everything about you is out of my dearest dreams.”

“Men often call us angels. We are formed of spirit and thought, not of flesh, like you.” Balthamos sniffed in Baruch’s direction as Baruch had watched the other angels sniff at the humans, but with less lecherousness, less hunger, and infinitely more interest. He drew closer, almost close enough to touch.

For the first time, Baruch’s heart dared to hope that Balthamos stood here, stayed here, for reasons other than to mock him. 

“And where did you come from? I saw you appear, out of nothing. It was magical.”

“Magic is a useful world for ‘that which I do not yet know’. Magic exists merely to be explained, either sooner or later, or never, and replaced with fact. So, no, we did not appear because of magic. There is simply a crossing in that spot in the sky, from another world.”

Baruch’s poor heart and mind could not take so many revelations, so many dreams fulfilled. He slumped, falling back to lean against a nearby tree. “Another world, you say? What is it like?”

“Not ‘it’. ‘They’. For there are many. Infinite. The area from which we crossed looked not unlike this, though the rivers ran swifter. There are also many pigs about, more aggressive than the ones in this world. The vistas are prettier in that world, which is why we spend the days there; however, the women are not nearly as pretty, nor as willing. At least, that is what my brethren say, and why they have become more interested in spending the evenings here. Soon, no doubt, they will grow bored, and begin looking for another world and another village and another passel of eager flesh. So it has been for thousands of years, and so we will continue for thousands more.”

Baruch’s heart would have broken if not for the distance with which Balthamos spoke of what his brethren did and wanted, and his own actions and desires. He couldn’t bear the thought of Balthamos moving on, flitting away along with the vicissitudes of his kind. “You… you speak of thousands of years as though... Have you lived all those that time?”

“Yes,” Balthamos replied, sounding almost bored, as though he had had this conversations many times before. “I am almost five thousand years old.”

Perhaps he _had_ given that he’d lived so long.

Baruch felt his legs grow weak at the thought. “Thousands of years of travel between all these worlds? The joy of it.”

Balthamos shrugged. “They begin to blend together. As does the flesh we find in all of them. I have never understood how the others retain interest. Such lustful diversions have rarely satisfied me. They are as empty and dull as most of the uninhabited worlds.”

“Worlds would never blend together for me. Each one would remain a special jewel, just as people do.”

“Is that what you wish?” Balthamos asked, studying him again. “To travel through the veils?”

“It is what I have sought my whole life, though I didn’t know it until now.” 

Balthamos looked away. He was a bit less visible now that the sun had finally set. But Baruch had caught his shape (he felt that he would never lose it) and, even in the growing darkness, was able to make out enough lines—the curve of a shoulder, the flexing of a foot, the embarrassed flutter of his right wing. Somehow, seeing only part of him, having to hold the disparate curves and lines and angles together with both his eyes and his mind, made Balthamos almost more real, more visible than an obvious, physical human. The work required to see the angel made the act of seeing more active and precious than Baruch had ever known it could be. He longed to touch, to find out if Bathamos was as not-quite solid as he was not-quite visible.

Suddenly, and overcome by his yearning, it struck him that such a being must have so many better things to do than to explain anything to him. All of Balthamos’s friends—brothers, sisters, whatever they were—had gone off, each with a human companion, for lustful reasons that no one in the company had bothered to hide. And yet Balthamos remained chastely here, with him, instead of approaching any of the new humans who had come looking to attach themselves to just such a one as he.

“You began by asking me why I hid back here, but why are _you_ here?” Baruch suddenly asked. “Why do _you_ hang back? For, as you said, the women are very pretty.”

“The others wish to be human, even if it would mean trading our immortal lives for your short ones. They wish to feel and to sweat. They long for the weightiness and power of your bodies, the intensity of your sensations. They seek to slake their lust for all that, but the humans seek only the fleeting excitement of novelty, not actual companionship. Without that, I lack interest.”

“If you are so bored, why do you stay with these angels? Who don’t you travel on your own?”

Balthamos shrugged, the most elegant rearrangement of lines Baruch had ever seen. “I would prefer not to be alone.”

“If I could fly from world to world, I would never feel alone, even if I had no one else to share it with,” Baruch breathed, shivering just from imagining it, even though the night was warm. “Though, I assume, it would be even nicer with company. Company such as yours.”

Balthamos looked at Baruch again, this time more piercingly. “No one has ever found my company so desirable. You really are a strange one.” 

Baruch took that as the closest thing to an invitation he would get. He drew closer until his tunic disappeared entirely in the shadow of the light that was Balthamos. “May I touch you?”

“There is not much to touch,” Balthamos answered. 

“May I still?”

Balthamos nodded and drew himself straight, as though expecting to be gripped and groped like a statue—exploratory and violating. He jumped when, instead, Baruch reached for his hand to lift it, to spread the fingers apart, to stroke the palm. Baruch found that Balthamos was correct; the angels did not have flesh, like he did. Balthamos had no sweat, no smell. They were not like humans, but neither were they mere air, as Baruch had at first thought when he saw them descending from the sky. Balthamos was able to grip Baruch’s fingers right back, to exert a slight, but deliciously cool pressure—such a treat on this hot night. Balthamos held on even as Baruch, out of nervousness and shyness, began to let Balthamos’s hand drop.

“Thank you, Balthamos,” Baruch whispered, enjoying this second occasion to let his tongue form the word. Never before had he appreciated his own physical form, but now, his ability to _feel_ as he did at this moment. Balthamos’s name gave his mouth and his body their first true purpose.

“Ah.. ah…” Balthamos muttered softly to himself, as though stricken. For a second, he collected more light. He did not shine—none of the angels quite did—but if he had, he would have shone brighter.

“What is it?” Baruch asked.

“There was more of you just then. I do not know what happened, but you almost shone with Dust. It waved around you, collected around your form, like a wave, a pulse. What were you thinking that made it do that?”

“I…” Baruch felt himself grow warm. He could not tell Balthamos what he had been thinking. So instead, he asked, “What is Dust?”

“Dust is what I am made of. Feeling and spirit and thought and consciousness, all condensed into a malleable form. Why such condensing appears as men and women with wings, I cannot tell you. But it settles upon humans, too, and a few other conscious species. It settled very heavily on you just now. Why? What were you thinking, or feeling?”

“I was thinking that I liked saying your name. I was feeling that nothing has ever felt as nice as your cool touch.” Emboldened, Baruch asked, “Does Dust glow? Because if so, then more must have settled on you at the same moment. What were _you_ thinking?”

But instead of answering, Balthamos pulled himself backwards. “I cannot.” 

“You cannot what?”

“I must go.” To accompany the words, he took several steps back, almost stumbling in his panicked haste. His wings fluttered, and he lifted a few feet off the ground.

“No, no, please!” They had only just met, but already Baruch felt as though he would die if Balthamos were to leave. He reached out and grabbed Balthamos’s wrist just before he floated out of reach. 

With his wings spread and shining, Balthamos looked large and strong to Baruch’s awe-struck eyes. But he was able to pull the angel back quite easily, using much less strength than he would have needed with a man of that size. Balthamos struggled, but only slightly, and he whimpered pathetically in pain.

Baruch immediately released him. “Did I hurt you? I would not hurt you for all the world. Oh, what have I done?” 

“I am not hurt. I am—”

“I did not mean it. It is only that I would rather not see you go.”

“You are too strong for me. And moreover, you have distracted me.”

“From what?”

“From my mission. I have a report to make. I must go while they are all still busy, with their mates. I must fly now so that they can all be punished.”

“Who?” Baruch asked.

“The other angels. What they do is forbidden. I am to inform the Authority of their whereabouts so that they may be punished. But you… you almost caused me to fall with them.”

Baruch stumbled back, horrified. “You are a spy? You mean to betray them?”

“It is why I travel with them.”

“No, no, you cannot be,” Baruch said. “You could not do such a base thing. Not you. For you are good and kind. I know you are.”

“You do not know me at all.”

“Yes, I do. I feel that I have known you since before I was born, and I know that you do not want to do this thing. For all that it does not interest you, you know that what they do is not wrong. They love.”

“That is not love. That is lust.”

“They make the townspeople happy, even if for a short while. All those who came here tonight had a light and a happiness and an expectancy in their eyes that I have never seen in this town, in any of the towns I have visited. Your coming—the whole company’s coming—has brought joy. Even that girl I was looking at… Rachel will marry my despotic brother and suffer his tyranny the rest of her days, but your coming has given her a memory to cherish forever. Surely you see that has to be a good thing.”

“The Authority disagrees. He has punished angels before. But the practice grows ever more common, and so, he has inveigled his supporters in increasing numbers to stop it. Soon, he will begin punishing the humans as well, in an attempt to dissuade the practice on both sides. He thinks you grow too willful.”

“And who is he to judge?”

“He is the creator, the first, the light itself.”

Baruch stood firmly. “If that is what he thinks, then he is wrong. And a bad creator, a terrible judge. I defy his judgement.”

Baruch had never considered himself a brave man, but in this moment, he knew that he was. He did not think that Balthamos cared for his flesh—not the way the other angels seemed to have lusted for their companions’ bodies. But there was want in his eyes all the same. He had glowed when Baruch had touched him, had felt something. Balthamos was good, Baruch knew it, he _knew_ , but had been convinced to do a terrible thing. 

Baruch was a simple man. He could think of only one way to stop this travesty. Whatever Balthamos was, Baruch did not think him a hypocrite. He would not continue down this path if he were like those the Authority condemned.

And so, he leaned in and kissed him, right where he thought his lips might be. He had aimed mostly true, and landed beside Balthamos’s full, soft, pouting mouth. Baruch leaned in closely, gripping each of Balthamos’s wrists in his own. He kissed until he could feel Balthamos’s resistance begin to weaken, and his mouth open. He leaned back, giving Balthamos a chance to pull away if this was not what he wanted, if, in fact, Baruch had been wrong about him.

He was not wrong. 

Baruch had kissed a few girls before giving up the practice as hopeless. He had, much more often, kissed men, and more. That had been somewhat more satisfying than the girls, but _this_ … This was like having his spirit bathed by a warm, eager, attentive tongue. Nothing anyone had ever done to his cock had ever satisfied him as much as this fairly chaste kiss. Instead of lips pressing against his in the normal way, Baruch almost felt love itself kissing him, both the feeling and the thought of it. Even the naked length hardening against the fabric of his breeches did not exert the weighty, animal pressure of a cock. Instead, he felt as though he were being anointed by a scepter. 

When he had run out of air, he pulled back, gasping. Balthamos didn’t gasp. Baruch wondered if Balthamos, not being a man, could ever run out of air, or if he could kiss endlessly.

“No one has ever…” Balthamos began. “That is to say, I have never…”

“You will not tell the Authority,” Baruch interrupted, with irrational confidence, more statement than pleading. 

“No,” Balthamos said in his sullen affectation, but Baruch could tell he was happy underneath his conflicted, defeated exterior. “You have made me understand, though not quite, for it is not… It is not your flesh that I want. I had no idea such a desire existed. No, I will not betray the others. I cannot, now.”

“But I will,” a new voice said.

Baruch trembled, because he knew this voice, better than most.

“You return here, despite your banishment?” Enoch asked, striding coolly in front of them. It had grown too dark to make out human features, but Baruch recognized him anyway. “You knew the punishment.”

“I am not in your dominion. The border lies yonder. I have not crossed it.”

“You will when I drag you across it. And then I will be free to execute you.”

“Who is this man?” Balthamos whispered in terror, and holding Baruch’s hand as tightly as his not-quite-there strength could manage.

Baruch thrilled to sense that the terror was for _his_ sake, even though they had only just met.

“This is my brother,” Baruch answered, looking at where Enoch stood. He continued, equally to chastise Enoch as to explain to Balthamos, “who has hated me since my birth, even though it was not my fault that I collected our father’s love, the way you collect Dust. It merely happened, a preference Jared could not help, just as your brethren cannot help their lusts. But for this, Enoch has always punished me, just as your Authority seeks to punish the angels.”

“I have reason enough now. You would have seen my bride make a mockery of me. You would have helped her.” Enoch approached, radiating calm malevolence, but Baruch held his ground.

“You have twenty brides, brother. Surely, you could let this one girl experience some happiness.”

“No. Instead, she will die. They will all die. This entire town will pay for her crimes, and yours. I will stand and watch it happen, brother. I will see you burn. For he is coming, and he will spare no one, save myself, for having handed you all to him.”

“How? How can you, a mere human, call upon the authority?” Balthamos asked, addressing Enoch for the first time.

The night had grown completely dark, but a beam of moonlight shone on Enoch’s big, white teeth. “You were not the only spy, weakling. I have killed the other, and taken his password. I have called. I will bring this Authority of yours such plans, such ideas for the management of his angels, that he will need me forever. I will be invaluable. And then I will have power and women to last me forever. And Baruch will be dead.”

Before Baruch or Balthamos could respond, the sky overhead opened, and more angels than could be discerned individually pored through a much bigger opening than the one Balthamos’s friends had come through. They filled the sky, giving the aspect of a sunrise that did not brighten the earth below. Fire that spilled out of it, as though from an upside down volcano.

With horror, Balthamos soon realized that it was indeed a volcano. An enormous one, bigger than any that existed in this world. It belched endless jets of molten lava into the valley. The red streams met and collided and began to cover the ground, streaming in every direction, both east to Gomorrah, and west to Sodom.

At least ten angels landed near them. With multiple on each arm and leg and anywhere they could grasp, they slowly lifted Enoch up and away, towards the angel who floated near the center of the opening. Even at this great distance, Baruch could see that he shone brighter than any of the others. Like a moon surrounded by stars. 

Around him, from every part of the valley, Baruch heard screams, both human and angel, as either the flames burned them or the new warrior angels attacked. 

“We must flee,” Balthamos said, dragging Baruch away. “Let us run into the river to hide from the flames. I have not the strength to carry you as they did your brother. If we stay here, we will die.”

“No, we have to try to save the others. This is my doing. It was his hatred for me that drove him to this. Innocent people will die because my father preferred me.”

“You cannot save them, my dear Baruch. It will be enough if you can save yourself.”

“‘Your dear?’” Baruch asked, hopeful again even as the world burned around him. “Do you mean to say…”

“You are clever enough know exactly what I mean,” Balthamos said, with that edge of sarcasm in his voice again, sarcasm which Baruch knew masked all sorts of feelings.

“If you care for me, then help me!” Without listening for further protest, Baruch ran towards the nearest screams. 

Balthamos’s companions, the cowards, had flown into the sky as soon as the lava had begun to stream through the grass, abandoning their human lovers to their fates. But they fled to no avail, for the waiting warriors in the sky skewered them like fish, sending showers of golden particles back to the ground, mingling with the golden jets of flame. 

If it had been any less horrible, it would have been beautiful.

Baruch helped two women climb into a tree, where they might be safe from the scalding lava. Balthamos flew, worriedly between the branches that touched. At Baruch’s pleading insistence, overcame his fear enough to show them safe places to plant their hands and feet and thereby make their way, branch by branch to higher ground, beyond the edge of the volcano in the sky. 

Baruch was retracing his path through the branches in order to go back for more stranded women when his foot slipped. Balthamos’s scream of anguish was what told him he was falling, more than any physical sensation. 

He expected pain upon impact, but instead he felt nothing. Then there was dark nothingness, followed by excruciating pulling and a lightweight smothering, like being pressed by a pillow.

He opened his eyes but couldn’t see anything, because Balthamos had covered Baruch’s eyes, face, and entire shape with the entirety of his great wingspan. 

The first sign that something had happened was the silence. Where there had been screaming and wailing all throughout the valley, Baruch suddenly heard nothing but Balthamos’s sobs. 

“No, no, no, no,” Balthamos was whispering. He tore at Baruch’s clothes, but clumsily, because his weak hands could not rip the cloth as easily as he wanted. 

Baruch could feel himself growing weaker, less solid, all while Balthamos glowed even brighter. 

“I am dead, aren’t I?” he asked. 

“I will fix this,” Bathamos said, without answering him. “You were brave when I was a coward. In the space of an hour, you showed me more than once what real courage is, and now you are… I will…”

“What are you doing?” Baruch asked weakly. He could sense most of himself being contained and even siphoned off to increase Balthamos’s density. “Where are we?”

“I pulled your body into another world, similar to your own, but where the battle does not rage.”

What little was left of Baruch thrilled. Other worlds! He was with Balthamos in another world. Baruch would happily have died a thousand times to experience this.

“But you are slipping away into yet another world, one to which I cannot follow,” Balthamos continued, desperately, confused, and so, terribly afraid. “I have only heard, very vaguely, of how this might be done, but have never seen it,” he said, almost to himself, for Baruch had no idea what he was talking about, and felt that he remained in one place—remained conscious at all—due to his love of Balthamos’s voice. Luckily, the voice continued speaking, holding Baruch more strongly than than any of the physical gestures Balthamos made around them. “Would you mind…There is a way, but it would involve linking yourself to me. I don’t think anyone would want…”

Baruch reached, with what, he was not sure, for it was not his body that responded, but rather the shadow of himself, around which Balthamos was trying to hold some essential part of himself. And when he spoke, it was not with his mouth, but with thoughts that swirled around Balthamos’s face, where there should have been lips. 

“In all the years I lived, I wanted nothing more than this, and you, even though I only discovered it in my last few waking breaths,” he said, or thought, or felt. 

However it was that Baruch had communicated, Balthamos seemed to understand. He nodded, since the effort to keep Baruch with him seemed to be taking all of his effort. His light fingers had found the knife in Baruch’s body’s pocket, which aided him in removing the rest of the clothing on Baruch’s body. 

“I have saved most of the dust that clung to you, but it is not enough to bind it, to make it hold shape when your ghost dissolves within the molding. You need more in order for it to condense. You will need some of mine.”

“What will happen to you?” Baruch asked, now understanding what Balthamos was trying to do, what he was sacrificing to save him. “I will not allow…”

“I will simply become a lower order of angel, less solid than I was. But still hale.”

“I cannot let you…”

Balthamos shut Baruch up by kissing him again, molding the swirling thoughts that he was increasingly becoming. The kiss gave Baruch focus—a face, a head for Balthamos to grasp by the ears and press against. Little by little, will and desire and love helped Baruch to become what he needed in order to receive that kiss. 

“More, more,” Baruch whispered, understanding what it was that they needed to do. “Touch me everywhere.”

More passionately than the few kisses they had shared when Baruch was still alive, Balthamos ground against him, as though this was what he’d been more interested in the entire time—Baruch’s spirit and self, with his body as merely as a welcome addition, as opposed to the primary draw. The essence of Baruch that Balthamos held together solidified into a counter-pressure. Although he could still feel himself mostly as swirling bits of himself, he could feel where his legs should have been falling open, inviting.

“Please. Please,” Baruch whispered into Balthamos’s ear, knowing what it was he asked for, but not how it might be accomplished.

As his cock hardened against Baruch, Balthamos must have lost a little control, for his wings began fluttering more wildly, and pulled them up, up and away from the grass upon which Baruch’s body lay. Whatever he was doing, however much of himself he must have already given, it must have been enough, because Baruch could feel himself pulled up into the air along with him. They were flying. Baruch was flying like a bird, like an angel. He was becoming solid enough to feel the wind against the slowly solidifying points of light that Balthamos had salvaged from his body and ghost. He was solid enough to feel it when Balthamos entered him, and suddenly had a mouth with which to gasp. 

Balthamos had not smiled once during their too-short acquaintance, but he smiled now as he felt Baruch trembling in his arms, felt him clenching around his cock. “Am I hurting you?” he asked.

Balthamos moaned, hearing his voice gaining strength enough to joke. “No, it does not hurt. But it would be even better if it did, wouldn’t it?”

“It would, but it is working all the same.” 

Baruch finally felt solid enough to thrust back, and together, they flew like drunken birds of paradise, left and then down and then in a messy circle as they clasped one another and rutted more passionately than any angel ever had with a human, because Baruch no longer _was_ human. They lost their balance and fell back to earth in a tangle of limbs and wings. Balthamos formed a cocoon for Baruch with his wings and continued to rock into him, kissing him all the while. 

Baruch could feel it when Balthamos emptied into him. Angels had no flesh, and no fluids, but _something_ was transferred—a core of Dust, perhaps. Baruch felt an itching travel up his spine and into his shoulder blades. He gasped harder than at any climax when, instead of seed, wings sprouted out of him, melding with Balthamos’s, stealing bits of them and drawing to him the additional atmospheric Dust that had been attracted by their coupling. Within minutes, Baruch’s wings had grown even bigger and more beautiful than Balthamos’s.

“You have saved me,” he whispered when they had calmed down. “You have saved the best part of me, and shown me a new world, and let me fly.” He clutched Balthamos, and knew that he would never let go. “I love you, Balthamos. Wherever you go, so will I. Forever.”

“Of course you will,” Balthamos said. A slight twinge of sarcasm returned to his voice, but driven by such love that Baruch could barely hear it. “Part of you comes from part of me. We are as one now.”

“Where shall we go first?” Baruch asked. He instinctively spread his wings and rose into the air, faster than he expected. Panicked, he stilled them and sank down again to the ground, where he strode to Balthamos and embraced him again.

“Somewhere the Authority cannot find us,” Balthamos replied, with great seriousness. “We are renegades now.” 

“Renegades about to go on adventures,” Baruch added, because the situation was far from dire. 

“Yes. Companions. Forever.”


End file.
